Glasshouse - Charles Stross [35]
“Arrested? What’s that?”
“The police.” He’s breathing heavily. “They can take you away, lock you up. Detention, it’s called.” He’s still flushed in the face and clearly concerned. “You could have been hurt.”
I shiver. “Let’s go home.”
“I’ll call a taxi,” he says grumpily. “You’ve done enough damage for one day.”
SAM has bought a thing called a cell phone—a pocket-sized replacement for the blocky network terminal wired into the wall. He keeps it in a pocket. He speaks to it for a while, and a few cents later a taxi pulls up. We go home, and he stomps into the living room, leaving the suitcase in the front hall, and turns on the television. I tiptoe around for a while before looking in on him to find that he’s engrossed in the football, a faintly puzzled expression on his face.
I spend some time in my bedroom, reading from my own tablet. It’s got lots of advice about how people lived in the dark ages, none of which makes much sense—most of what they did sounds arbitrary and silly when you strip it of the surrounding social context and the history that explains how their customs developed. The way my experiment in the restaurant backfired still burns me (how can not wearing clothes be so harmful in any rational social context?), but after a while I realize that I didn’t get zapped this morning when I went around the house naked. So I take off my new boots, then my dress, which is beginning to get a bit whiffy. I go downstairs and open the suitcase, take out my purchases, and carry them up to my room. I stash them in the wardrobe, but there’s enough space for ten times as much stuff, which leaves me puzzled. But I don’t feel like trying the new costumes on right now. In fact, I feel like shit. Sam is ignoring me pointedly (a defensive reaction, I think), we’re living in a crazy experiment that doesn’t make sense, and I won’t even get a chance to find out if everyone else thinks it’s mad until the day after tomorrow.
I’m reading the tablet’s explanation of how vocations—excuse me, “work”—worked in dark ages society, boggling slightly, when a bell rings from the low table next to my bed. I look toward it and my tablet flashes: ANSWER THE PHONE.
Oh. I didn’t realize I had one. I fumble around for a while then find the chunky gadget on a cord that you’re supposed to hold to your face. “Yes?” I say.
“R-Reeve! Is that you?”
“Cass? Kay?” I ask, blanking on names for a moment.
“Reeve! You’ve got to help me get out of here! He’s crazy. If I stay here, I’m sure he’s going to end up hitting me again. I need somewhere to go.” I’ve heard panic before, and this is it. Cass (Kay? a little corner of me insists) is desperate. But why?
“Where are you?” I ask. “What’s happening? Calm down and tell me everything.”
“I need to get away from here,” she insists again, her voice breaking. “He’s crazy! He’s read the manuals and he’s insisting he’s going to get the completion bonus, and if he has to, he’s going to force me to do everything by the book. He went out this morning, locking me in and taking my wallet—he’s still got it—and when he got back, he threatened to beat me up if I didn’t prepare a meal for him. He says that for maximum points the female must obey the male, and if I don’t do what the guidelines say, he’ll beat me up—shit, he’s coming.”
Click.
I’m left holding the receiver, staring at the wall behind the bed in horror. I drop it and rush downstairs to the living room. “Sam! We’ve got to do something!”
Sam looks up from his tablet. “Do what?”
“It’s K—Cass! She just phoned. She needs help. Her husband is crazy—he’s taken away her wallet, locked her indoors, and is threatening to beat her up if she doesn’t obey him. We’ve got to do something! There’s no way she can defend herself—”
Sam puts his tablet down. “Are you sure of this?” he asks quietly.
“Yes! That’s what she told me!” I’m just about jumping up and down, beside myself with fury. (If I ever catch the joker who leeched all my upper body strength, I swear I am going to graft their head to a tree sloth and make them run an endurance race.) “We’ve got to do